Home of the Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Stürmer, Nuremberg held great significance during the Nazi Germany period. Because of the city's relevance to the Holy Roman Empire and its position in the centre of Germany, the Nazi Party chose the city to be the site of huge Nazi Party conventions–the Nuremberg rallies. The rallies were held annually from 1927 to 1938 in Nuremberg. After Hitler's rise to power in 1933 the Nuremberg rallies became huge state propaganda events, a centre of anti-Semitism and other Nazi ideals. It was at the 1935 rally that Hitler specifically ordered the Reichstag to convene at Nuremberg to pass the Nuremberg Laws which revoked German citizenship for all Jews; to this day one could be born in Germany yet not be allowed citizenship as in the case of my son. A number of premises were constructed solely for these assemblies, some of which were not finished and so many examples of Nazi architecture can still be seen in the city today.

The site of the rallies on the outskirts of Nuremberg, particularly the enormous Zeppelin Meadow, was conspicuous for its monumental architecture and landscaping. The Nazis pioneered elaborate staging and lighting techniques to give the annual celebrations the character of sacred religious rituals with Hitler in the role of High Priest. The function of the ceremonies was to manufacture ecstasy and consensus, eliminate all reflective and critical consciousness, and instil in Germans a desire to submerge their individuality in a higher national cause.

ZeppelinfeldIn 1933 and 1934, the Zeppelin Field meadow served as a parade ground for the National Socialists during their Party Rallies. They put up temporary wooden stands for the spectators but by 1935–1936, the Zeppelin Field, complete with stone stands, was constructed to plans by architect Albert Speer. The complex is almost square, and centres on the monumental Grandstand with the “Führer’s Rostrum”. The visibly lower spectators’ stands on the other three sides were divided by 34 tower-like structures, housing toilet facilities. The interior (312 x 285 metres) provided space for up to 200,000 people for the mass events staged by the National Socialists.

Inspiring the final scene of Star Wars (1977), Himmler, Hitler and Lutze at the 6th Party Congress rally in the film with the Grandstand in the background from Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will; a link to which is on the right of the screen. The film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the Congress, including those by Hitler, interspersed with footage of massed party members. Hitler commissioned the film whilst serving as unofficial executive producer; his name appears in the opening titles. The overriding theme is the return of Germany as a great power, with Hitler as the True German Leader who will bring glory to the nation. Much of it takes place in the Zeppelin field- the second day shows an outdoor rally for theReichsarbeitsdienst (Labour Service), which is primarily a series of pseudo-military drills by men carrying shovels. The following day starts with a Hitler Youth rally on the parade ground again showing Nazi dignitaries arriving with Baldur von Schirach introducing Hitler. There then follows a military review featuring Wehrmacht cavalry and various armoured vehicles.

It's on the fourth day (Riefenstahl took liberties in her editing; this is not a true documentary despite her post-bellum protests) which provides the climax here as Wagner'sGötterdämmerung plays whilst Hitler, flanked by Heinrich Himmler and Viktor Lutze, walks through a long wide expanse with over 150,000 SA and ϟϟ troops standing at attention, to lay a wreath at a Great War Memorial.

Arguably the most powerful scene in a film that has many is Hitler’s speech at the
memorial for the late Paul von Hindenburg, Germany’s most famous World War I
commander and Hitler’s predecessor as the Weimar President. The Führer is surrounded
by over a quarter of a million civilians and troops from the Nazi special Schutz Staffel
(“Shield Squadron,” or ϟϟ , Hitler’s personal bodyguard) and Sturm Abteilung (“Storm
Troopers,” or SA, an earlier paramilitary outfit eventually superseded by the SS). Hitler,
flanked by ϟϟ commander Heinrich Himmler and SA commander Viktor Lütze, slowly
marches towards Hindenburg’s memorial and gives the Nazi salute in absolute silence.

Hitler then reviews the parading SA and ϟϟ men, following which Hitler and Lutze deliver a speech where they discuss the Night of the Long Knives purge of the SA several months prior. New party flags are consecrated by touching them to the "blood banner" (the same cloth flag said to have been carried by the fallen Nazis during the Beer Hall Putsch).One of my seniors wrote her IB internal assessment paper onHow the Film “Triumph of the Will” by Leni Riefenstahl Address the Night of the Long Knives in which she argues that

the post-Operation Hummingbird aura is explicit in Triumph of the Will,
and is especially heavy in the scene depicting Hitler’s address to the
Schutzstaffel and the Sturmabteilung. Despite their positions and
formations having aesthetic purposes, it is still evident that there was
a rift between the two groups, the former being closer to Hitler than
the latter, resulting in drunk quarrels during the Rally. These were,
needless to say, excluded from the film. Nevertheless, the cold
animosity and tension is evident.

Comparison of Triumph of the Will and the final scene of Star Wars IV: A New Hope; even John Williams's soundtrack evoked that heard in the earlier film.

In some cases, such the visual allusions to Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will that cap the concluding medal ceremony of A New Hope, the reference could only become clear in the context of the saga as a whole. In that case, the allusion to the Rebel victory as a quasi-fascist one suggested the moral hollowness of their victory achieved by military force, while setting the stage for their defeat at the start of the second film. The only enduring victories in these films are those built on love, understanding, and mutual self-sacrifice.

Procession march from Triumph of the Will to commemorate the dead of the SA and the ϟϟ at the Hall of Honour in Luitpold Arena, 1934 on left compared tothe Star Wars throne room scene with Hitler, Himmler and Lutze replaced with Skywalker, Chewbacca and Solo walking not towards huge vertical Nazi banners but beams of light akin to those used during the rallies (see immediately below) and Ridley Scott's Gladiator with its depiction of Commodus's entry into Rome (although Scott has pointed out that the iconography of Nazi rallies was of course inspired by the Roman Empire). Gladiator reflects back on the film by duplicating similar events that occurred in Hitler's procession. The Nazi film opens with an aerial view of Hitler arriving in a plane, whilst Scott shows an aerial view of Rome, quickly followed by a shot of the large crowd of people watching Commodus pass them in a procession with his chariot. The first thing to appear in Triumph of the Will is a Nazi eagle, which is alluded to when a statue of an eagle sits atop one of the arches (and then shortly followed by several more decorative eagles throughout the rest of the scene) leading up to the procession of Commodus. At one point in the Nazi film, a little girl gives flowers to Hitler, whilst Commodus is met with several girls that all give him bundles of flowers. Personally, I am most impressed in the opening scene when the Germans are heard giving the same war-cry as that heard in Zulu, Scott's favourite film.

The Nazi influence continues to be made explicit in the most recent instalment of Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The so-called 'Cathedral of Light.'

It was September and time for the annual party rally again. This time London instructed the British ambassador to attend, and Henderson saw for himself the spectacle of aggregate manpower as hundreds of thousands of brown-shirted party automatons paraded at Nuremberg. Hitler arrived after dark, the arrival of the “messiah” announced by the simultaneous uplifting of three hundred searchlight beams to intersect thousands of feet up, leaving the hushed and darkened stadium inside what Sir Nevile called “a cathedral of ice.” The thousands of standard-bearers marched up the main lanes carrying red or gold lights that formed five flowing rivers of colour in the darkness. The dour Henderson involuntarily thrilled to this pageant as much as if it had been His Majesty’s birthday parade.

Four coloured versions of the dome of light seen between 1936-1938 courtesy of Michael Sabadi, artist and owner of the unique Rekonquista art gallery in Nuremberg. Owner to the rights of the original black and white photographs, Herr Sabadi has produced these images for the first time in real colour. From left to right: i) The well-known photograph of Walter Hege from 1938 showing the “Zeppelintribüne” in colour; ii) The “dome of light” back in 1937 with focused-light view; iii) the “Dome of light” of 1936 with a spread-light view for comparison and iv) distant view of the “dome of light” back in 1937.

Albert Speer had chosen the Pergamon Altar as a model, shown during the Third Reich and t0day.

Blowing up of the swastika on the Zeppelin Grandstand on April 22, 1945

The gold-plated and laurel-wreathed swastika which once crowned Albert Speer’s Zeppelin tribune represented the apotheosis and fulfilment of the swastikas which are still present, but sublimated in the decorative scheme of the tribune’s interior. Ornament as the unconscious graphology of the Volkgeist was thus ‘completed’ in the self-conscious presence of the Nazi symbol, and the sign of a (Gothic, mediaeval) past is linked to the rhetoric of a glorious future, thus avoiding the displacement of tradition implied by an Enlightenment concept of progress. The Tribune swastikas expressed in microcosm Hitler’s aim of uniting the medieval Nuremberg with the ‘modern’ National Socialist city, giving equal weight to a glorious past and a glorious future, and thereby defining the present as a moment of transition from one to the other.

Members of the Reichsarbeitsdienst (RAD) parading before Hitler, September 7, 1938

Party Rallies from 1936 and 1937

The building on the Zeppelin field was begun at once, in order to have at least the platform ready for the coming Party Rally. To clear the ground for it, the Nuremberg streetcar depot had to be removed. I passed by its remains after it had been blown up. The iron reinforcements protruded from concrete debris and had already begun to rust. One could easily visualise their further decay. This deary sight led me to some thoughts which I later propounded to Hitler under the pretentious heading of 'A Theory of Ruin Value'. The idea was that buildings of modern construction were poorly suited to form that 'bridge of tradition' to future generations which Hitler was calling for. It was hard to imagine that rusting heaps of rubble could communicate these heroic inspirations which Hitler admired in the monuments of the past. By using special materials and by applying certain principles of statics, we should be able to build structures which even in a state of decay, after hundreds or (such were our reckonings) thousands of years would more or less resemble Roman models.

To illustrate my ideas I had a romantic drawing prepared. It showed what the reviewing stand on the Zeppelin Field would look like after generations of neglect, overgrown with ivy, its columns fallen, the walls crumbling here and there, but the outlines still clearly recognisable. In Hitler's entourage this drawing was regarded as blasphemous. That I could even conceive of a period of decline for the newly founded Reich destined to last a thousand years seemed outrageous to many of Hitler's closest followers. But he himself accepted my ideas as logical and illuminating. He gave orders that in the future the important buildings of his Reich were to be erected in keeping with the principles of this 'law of ruins'

As Germany copes with mass migration and blows to its economy, like the Volkswagen scandal, and to its pride, like the allegations it paid bribes to secure its hosting of the 2006 World Cup, it also continues to deal with vestiges of its problematic past. In few places are those questions more vivid than in Nuremberg. Should public money be spent to preserve these crumbling sites? Is controlled decay an option for anything associated with the Nazis? Or have Hitler and his architect, Albert Speer, locked future generations into a devilish pact that compels Germans not only to teach the history of the Thousand Year Reich the Nazis proclaimed here but also to adapt it for each new era?

The Zeppelin Grandstand was constructed under Albert Speer's management between 1934 and 1937. Hitler intended the buildings at the Party Rally Grounds to stand for thousands of years, similar to the great cathedrals of the past. Four days after Nuremberg fell, the US Army blew up the swastika which had been installed at the centre of the Grandstand. In 1967 the colonnade of the Grandstand was blown up because it had become unstable. The height of the side towers was also reduced by half in the 1970s.

The American flag was officially raised over the swastika above Zeppelin Stadium on April 21, 1945. Shown in the photo on the left are Generals Patch and O' Daniel awaiting the start of the formal ceremonies.

Photos taken in 1955

The US army conducting a military ceremony around the time West Germany joined NATO, just a decade after the Germans were finally stopped from continuing their campaign of genocide and world conquest, which led in large measure to the formation of the Warsaw Pact in retaliation.

The rear

A visit to the Nuremberg Zeppelin field as it exists today supplies evidence of a healthy disrespect for the few remaining monuments of National Socialist architecture. On Sundays, Turkish Gastarbeiter and their families picnic in the shade of trees flanking Hitler’s ‘Great Road’, the grand thoroughfare which was intended to link the ancient Nuremberg, the ‘City of Imperial Diets’ with his modern ‘City of the Rallies’. Tennis is played against the walls of the Zeppelin tribune, and teenagers tryst on the steps. However, this reclaiming of Nazi architecture for leisure activity is frustrated by the neo-Nazi swastika graffiti which must constantly be removed from the tribune towers and entranceways. This is also the case at the Olympic stadium in Berlin, where the bronze swastikas which have been partially erased from the ceremonial bell reappear in graffiti on the lavatory walls, contesting with the countering phrase ‘Nazi raus’

Spread out are these flag supporters during the Nazi era, and whilst guiding my students

Märzfeld

Albert Speer designed the Märzfeld as an arena for Wehrmacht manoeuvres (with 955 x 610 metres interior area, making it larger than 80 football pitches). The Märzfeld was named after the ancient God of War, Mars, and to commemorate the re-introduction of conscription in March 1935. Up until 1939, 11 of 24 planned Märzfeld towers had been finished. They divided the visitors‘ stands surrounding the Märzfeld. The entire complex was to provide space for about 250,000 people. A group of colossal statues, incorporating a Goddess of Victory and warriors, was planned for the central grandstand.

Constructing the Märzfeld; on the right is Speer

Blowing up the eleven towers on March Field in 1966 and 1967. Thousands of homes were needed because of the destruction caused by World War II. Starting in 1957, the city began to build the new suburb of Langwasser on the south-eastern part of the former Party Rally Grounds which was then the largest building programme for any city in the Federal Republic.

Former transformer building (Transformatorenstation)

Located behind the Grandstand on Regensburger Straße, the station was built in 1936 by Albert Speer for the power supply to the Party Rally Grounds. It supplied the power for the Party Rally Grounds and the so-called 'Cathedral of Light.' The energy demands of lighting and the general running of the grounds was extremely high. The transformer station could handle the power supply for a major city. One can still see the faint outline of the Reich eagle which apparently does not cause concern to Burger King. After 1945 the building passed into the possession of the city of Nuremberg. The local power supply company N-ERGIE used the technology for power supply until 1998, after which the technical modification of the transformer lost its purpose.

By way of comparison, a McDonald's in Paris along the Rue de Rivoli of all places seventy years after they had first flown, when even the Wehrmacht thought not to parade under the Arc de Triomphe out of respect for French sensibilities....

Hall of Honour (Ehrenhalle)

During
the Weimar Republic, the City of Nuremberg had a monument erected, to
commemorate the 9,855 Nuremberg soldiers killed in World War I. The
design was by architect Fritz Mayer. A rectangular yard is adjacent to
the arcaded hall, with a row of pillars carrying fire bowls on either
side. Lord Mayor Hermann Luppe officially opened the hall in 1930.
During the1929 Party Rally, the Nazis for the first time incorporated
the then unfinished Hall of Honour in their staging of the cult of the
dead and where Hitler commemorated the fallen soldiers of World War I
and the “Martyrs of the NS Movement”. The ritual was intended to commit
the “party soldiers” present to sacrificing their lives for the “Führer”
and for National Socialism. In 1933, Hitler had the Luitpold Grove park
re-modelled into the Luitpold Arena for the Party Rallies.

Hitler reviewing the SA at the 1935 rally from the rostrum of the Grandstand.

It can be seen in this 1965 photo beneath the Congress Hall with the Great Street at the top-right.

The inscription inside reads: "To the victims of the wars 1914 to 1918 and 1939 to 1945 and to the tyranny 1933 to 1945 city of Nuremberg". Commemoration of the dead of the SA and the ϟϟ at the Hall of Honour in Luitpold Arena, 1934 superimposed over the exact spot today on right.

Illustration by Georg Fritz from the book Strassen und Bauten Adolf Hitlers published by the German Labour Front in 1939 and the same scene on April 27, 1945.The Luitpold Grove was created on the occasion of the 1906 Bavarian State Exhibition and as early as in 1927 and 1929, the Nazis held their party rallies here and in the inner city.

The Golden swastika on the rostrum at Luitpold arena was later taken as war booty by General Patton and, with this Luitpold eagle, is now exhibited at the D-Day Museumin New Orleans, Louisiana

I’m beginning to comprehend, I think, some of the reasons for Hitler’s astounding success. Borrowing a chapter from the Roman church, he is restoring pageantry and colour and mysticism to the drab lives of twentieth-century Germans. This morning’s opening meeting in the Luitpold Hall on the outskirts of Nuremberg was more than a gorgeous show; it also had something of the mysticism and religious fervour of an Easter or Christmas Mass in a great Gothic cathedral. The hall was a sea of brightly coloured flags. Even Hitler’s arrival was made dramatic. The band stopped playing. There was a hush over the thirty thousand people packed in the hall. Then the band struck up the Badenweiler March, a very catchy tune, and used only, I’m told, when Hitler makes his big entries.

Then and now (photo taken 2007).

Luitpoldhalle

Dating back to the Bavarian Exposition, the former machine hall was renovated and first used by the Nazis for the party convention party congress of 1934. Its monumental neo-classic façade featured a shell limestone facing with three enormous entrance portals. It was in this building during the party congress of 1935, that the Nuremberg laws were adapted which deprived German Jews and other minorities of their citizenship.

Hitler's car in front (centre) and him leaving in 1935. The last photo shows Rudolf Hess opening the 1936 party congress inside. The Luitpoldhalle had an extension of 180 x 50 metres and offered space for up to 16,000 people. Within it the party congress took place during the Reichsparteitages. From 1933 to 1936 the largest organ in Europe with 5 manuals and 220 registers was installed within the hall.

The structure was severely damaged by allied bombs in early 1945 and a few years later replaced by a parking lot. The granite staircase leading to the building remains intact today.

This monument to the pilots killed in the Great War was created in 1924 and is located directly behind the Ehrenhalle (Hall of Honour)

The Congress Hall(Kongreßhalle)

The Congress Hall is currently under monument protection. The cantilever roof was designed by Nuremberg architects Ludwig and Franz Ruff and the hall was planned as a conference centre for the NSDAP with room for up to 50,000 people. From the intended height of about 70 metres today it reaches only to 39.The largest part of the building is its brick walls; the facade was clad with large granite slabs "from all the Gaus of the Reich. The architecture, in particular the exterior façade, was based, among other things, on the Colosseum in Rome. The U-shaped building ends on the east side of the dozen pond with two head buildings. The foundation was laid in 1935, but the construction remained unfinished; in particular it was no longer possible to roof it. The dimensions of the U-shape exterior is 240 × 200 metres and within 175 × 155 metres.

The
Congress Hall was based on the Colosseum and was intended for Nazi
party congresses. It is the second largest remaining Nazi structure, the
largest being a former KdF holiday resort complex at Prora, on the
island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea.

Taking my students from the Bavarian International School on tour

Part of the building is used for a museum about Hitlerism in Nuremberg entitled Documentation Centre Nazi Party Grounds Nuremberg which deals with the time from the end of the Great War to the end of the Nuremberg trials of October 1946. Since 2000, the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände, with its permanent exhibition Faszination und Gewalt (Fascination and Terror), has been located in the northern wing. Photos of some of the exhibits can be found below.

A domed hall was to be erected a hundred feet high to seat 100,000. Among the party buildings designed to give the city of Nuremberg ‘its future and hence everlasting style’ was a congress hall for 60,000, a stadium ‘such as the world has never seen before’, and a parade ground for a million people. The excavations alone would have called for 40 miles of railway track, 600 million bricks would have been required for the foundations, and the outer walls would have been 270 feet high. Hitler paid particular attention to the durability of the bricks and other materials, so that thousands of years later the buildings should bear witness to the grandeur of his power as the pyramids of Egypt testified to the power and splendour of the Pharaohs. But if the movement should ever fall silent,’ he declared as he laid the foundation stone for the congress hall at Nuremberg, ‘then this witness here will still speak for thousands of years. In the midst of a sacred grove of ancient oaks men will then admire in reverent awe this first giant among the buildings of the Third Reich.’ And he remarked effusively to Hans Frank, "They will be so gigantic that even the pyramids will pale before the masses of concrete and colossi of stone which I am erecting here. I am building for eternity, for, Frank, we are the last Germans. If we were ever to disappear, if the movement were to pass away after many centuries, there would be no Germany any more."

At the end of the war the structure was used to store American military equipment.

Großen Straße

Speer designed the Great Street to be the central axis of the Party Rally Grounds aligned with the Imperial Castle in the Old Town to create a symbolic historic link. It is 60 metres wide and was to be 2 kilometres long. Between 1935 and 1939, only 1,5000 metres were actually built, with 60,000 granite slabs. On its concrete foundation, granite slabs were laid in two different colours- light- and dark grey- so that marching groups could more easily follow the orientation. The light grey, square plates have an edge length of 1.2 metres, which corresponds to the length of two Prussian spikes serving to further facilitate the maintenance of the formation during parades.

Fascination and Terror Exhibit

(Faszination und Gewalt)

Since 2000, the Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelände (Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds), with the permanent exhibition Faszination und Gewalt, has been located in the northern wing of the Congress Hall:

Various permanent exhibitions deal with the causes, connections and consequences of the National Socialist tyranny. Topics that have a direct connection to Nuremberg are particularly taken into account. The concept began in 1994 when the city council of Nuremberg decided to set up the documentation centre. On November 4, 2001 it was opened by the then-Federal President Johannes Rau. The Austrian architect Günther Domenig won the international competition in 1998 with his suggestion to drill the northern head building diagonally through a walk-through "pile" of glass and steel. exhibition The permanent exhibition fascination and violence deals with the causes, connections and consequences of national socialism. Aspects with a clear connection to Nuremberg were highlighted. Nuremberg was the city of the Reichsparteitage during the Third Reich and was often used for propaganda purposes. The history of the Reichsparteitage, the buildings of the Reichsparteitagsgelände, the Nuremberg Laws, the Nuremberg trial against the main responsibility of the Nazi crimes in 1945-46 and its twelve successor processes as well as the handling of the National Socialist architectural heritage after 1945 A portable audioguide, which conveys explanatory texts in several languages ​​to the visitor. Since May 2006, the exhibition in the Documentation Centre has been supplemented by a bilingual information system with 23 stelae in the historical area, which allows an individual tour of the former Reichsparteitagag grounds. In addition, the Association offers History For All e. V. Guided Tours on the former Reichsparteitagsagents. The connected study forum is located in the modern glass construction on the roof of the head building. A combination of altogether seven Nuremberg educational institutions, under the direction of the museums of Nuremberg, enables a comprehensive and target group oriented program. The offer ranges from 45 minute post-talks to student days, and is aimed at school classes, youth and adult groups. The content spectrum ranges from historical topics such as the power of images, youth between adaptation and resistance, or the system of concentration camps through railings to human rights work or social learning.

Then and now; unchanged within

Inside is a model of the proposedDeutsches Stadionwhich Hitler can be seen reviewing before the foundation stone is laid at the 1937 Nuremberg Parteitag der Arbeit.

The Deutsches Stadion was a monumental stadium designed by Speer for the Nazi Party Grounds which was begun in 1937 but interrupted two years later by the outbreak of the war and never completed.

Hitler and Speer visiting the test construction site, and as it appears today. The design was, as Speer himself said, inspired not by the Circus Maximus, but by the Panathinaiko stadiumwhich had impressed him greatly when he visited Athens in 1935. Speer's stadium in Nuremberg was planned as a gigantic expansion of the Graeco-Roman model, from which he adopted the Horseshoe design and the Propylaea, but transformed into a raised, pillar-built structure with a large colonnaded courtyard leading to the open end of the stadium Pillared inner courtyard. The planning for the stadium in Nuremberg could not be as if at the Panathinaiko stadium in Athens on a location at the bottom of a canyon, but had to be aligned on a flat piece of land (24 hectares) which is why his five rows of seats for 400,000 spectators had to be supported in the usual Roman way by massive barrel vaults. Pink granite blocks were provided for the outer facade, which would have been raised to a height of about 90 meters: a row of 65 metre high arches should rest on a substructure of dark red granite. The arcade and the pedestal again indicate a Roman round or stadium and not a Greek one, which, according to tradition, did not necessarily rest on a substructure. To bring a wide mass of spectators quickly to their ranks, express elevators should be installed that carry 100 spectators simultaneously to the seats on the upper three ranks. Once again, Roman construction served as a model. Speer apparently chose a horseshoe shape for his building after rejecting the oval shape of an amphitheatre. The last-mentioned plan would have intensified the heat after Speer's assertion, as well as a psychological disadvantage - a comment which he did not elaborate. When Speer mentioned the enormous cost of the building, Hitler, who laid the foundation on September 9, 1937, replied that the construction would cost less than two battleships of the Bismarck class. Wolfgang Lotz, who wrote about the German Stadium in 1937, commented that it would take twice the number of spectators who would have found a place in the Circus Maximus in Rome. Inevitably at that time, he also highlighted the community feeling that would create such a building between competitors and spectators:

As in ancient Greece, the elite and highly experienced men are chosen from among the masses of the nation. An entire nation in sympathetic astonishment sits in the ranks. Spectators and contestants go into one unit.

The idea of organising Paneuropean track and field athletics contests was perhaps inspired by the Panathenes, but Speer's stadium was stylistically more committed to ancient Rome than the Greeks; With its huge vaulted base and the arched exterior façade, it was more like the Circus Maximus than the style of the Athens Panathinaiko Stadium. Once again, a Nazi building represented a mixture of Greek and Roman elements, with a predominant portion of the Roman. But Hitler did not want such a stadium to be the center of German athletics. The restored Panathinaiko Stadium in Athens had been used for the Olympic Games in 1896 and the Olympic Games of 1906. In 1936 the games were held on the Reichsportfeld in Berlin, but Hitler insisted that all future games in the German stadium should take place after 1940, when the games were planned in Tokyo. This stadium was in all measure much larger than the Berlin Olympiastadion, which had a capacity of 115,000 spectators. Hitler's assumption is undoubtedly that after his victory in the Second World War the subjugated world would have had no choice but to send all athletes to Germany every four years to the Olympic Games. Pangermanic games should be of equal importance with a worldwide competition, in which the winners would have received their reward from the Fiihrer, surrounded by the loyalists of the party, who were to be placed in the straight transverse axis of the stadium, referring to ancient gods. As a result, this stadium design in Nuremberg had already anticipated Hitler's desire for the World Cup (like the Volkshalle, Berlin), long before this goal was put into words.Hitler, as late as July 6, 1942, enthused about the prospects of the Reichsparteitagsgelände and the proposed Deutsches Stadion:

The Party Rally has, however, been not only a quite unique occasion in the life of the NSDAP but also in many respects a valuable preparation for war. Each Rally requires the organisation of no fewer than four thousand special trains. As these trains stretched as far as Munich and Halle, the railway authorities were given first-class practice in the military problem of handling mass troop transportation. Nor will the Rally lose its significance in the future. Indeed, I have given orders that the venue of the Rally is to be enlarged to accommodate a minimum of two million for the future—as compared to the million to a million and a half to-day. The German Stadium which has been constructed at Nuremberg, and of which Horth has drawn two magnificent pictures, accommodates four hundred thousand people and is on a scale which has no comparison anywhere on earth.

Built in 1871, between 1934 and 1936 this nearby station accommodated tens of thousands of Party Rally participants. Today the site serves as the Gaststätte "Bahnhof Dutzendteich"

ϟϟ Barracks

The ϟϟ-Barracks were built by architect Franz Ruff between 1937 and 1939 on the western outskirts of the Party Rally Grounds. Although it had been referred to by the Nazis as the "Gateway to the Rally Grounds," it was not actually used until after the war had actually commenced and not during the years of the rallies. Its construction illustrates how the ϟϟ sought to be represented in Nuremberg by its own units right next to the rally grounds. In 1936 no barracks were planned for the Reichsparteitagitagsgelände but the ϟϟ, which had set up the guard service for the grounds, wanted one and in so doing expand its responsibilities and to set up its own troops. Thus in March 1936 ϟϟ-Gruppenführer Ernst-Heinrich Schmauser began the planning for its construction. By the following year the Nuremberg City Extension Office selected an area on the Frankenstraße. In July, Reichsführer ϟϟ Heinrich Himmler commissioned the general construction specialist Albert Speer to submit blueprints in three months. Because of the rapid planning, the additional effort required such as the laying of companies, supply lines, roads and tracks was not checked. After an inspection of the construction site by Himmler together with Speer and the Mayor of Nuremberg, Willy Liebel , an expansion of the plans was decided and Franz Ruff was commissioned as an architect. Ruff was also responsible for the construction of the neighboring Reichsparteitagsland. Hitler also interfered in its chaotic construction planning. For example, a construction plan was submitted by Ruff without any compensation issues clarified or a property developer named. In September 1937, Hitler ordered an immediate start of construction, and the accommodation was due to be ready by 1938, but the work was not started until October 20. On Hitler's request, the streetcar tracks running in front of the building were laid underground. The costs were also driven up by additional demands from Ruff. On June 2, 1939, the topping-out ceremony of the main building was celebrated and by 1940 the building complex was largely completed. Officially, it was always described as ϟϟ accommodation and never barracks. 175,000 m² of space was built and 4,500 windows and 3,500 doors were installed. In addition to the main building with two side wings, there were some secondary buildings around the central parade ground: a kitchen building (no longer present), a team building (today's H-Bau), a horse stable and garages. Directly on the Frankenstrasse lay the Führerheim (today's Z-Bau). The main building alone (with basement, ground floor, two upper floors and a top floor) had 1000 rooms. Above the main entrance hung a large eagle and the ceilings were covered with mosaics designed by Max Körner. The floor of the festival hall consisted of marble mosaics in the form of hooked crossbars. This was among the largest barracks buildings erected by the National Socialists and the entire complex consisted of the central main building with a “Portal of Honour”, and two side wings, both built around a courtyard, as well as several additional buildings. During the war radio
operators for the Waffen ϟϟ were trained here, some of whom took part
in the siege of Leningrad. During the Second World War radio operators were trained for different units. In addition, the SS-Nachrichten-Ersatzabteilung (Nuremberg) had its seat here. From May 1940, police were also stationed, the police division news department was taken over 1942/43 into the Waffen-ϟϟ. In May 1940, prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp came to the barracks for construction and other work. When Nuremberg was conquered by the Americans in April 1945, German troops from the ϟϟ barracks attempted a final resistance. On April 18, the barracks of troops of the 45th US infantry division were taken. Apart from bullet holes at the main building, the barracks were scarcely damaged during the war. Still in April the building complex was renamed Merrell Barracks , after a fallen soldier of the 3rd US infantry division .In the empty buildings were now resident foreign forced laborers (DPs). From the beginning 30,000 in June 1945 13,300 were still in Nuremberg and half lived in the ϟϟ-barracks . After the last inhabitants had left the barracks in 1946, the city wanted to use the buildings, but in 1948 American soldiers moved into the barracks. Through 1944-45, a small section of the
building was used to provide accommodation for roughly an hundred
prisoners from the Dachau and Flossenbürg concentration camps. After 1945 the barracks were occupied by the US Army. Todaythebuilding houses the Federal Department for the Recognition of Foreign Refugees.Click for Nuremberg old town

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